Deadly predators are the kind of drones most people know about from media reports on U.S. forces attacking Al Qaeda terrorists overseas. But the use of drones is growing daily for domestic civilian purposes.

Camp Roberts, on the south Monterey County line, has long been the military's key place to take a drone out for a test drive.

Naval Postgraduate School students and company technicians meet at Camp Roberts four times a year to fly drones, both big and small. The quarterly research and development gathering is led by Dr. Ray Buetter of the Naval Postgraduate School, and most recently happened on Tuesday.

"The idea is to have as little structure as possible so that we can collect those good ideas," Buetter told Julin.

One company, Physical Sciences Incorporated, practiced flying a 1-foot-wide, four-propeller, helicopter-type drone, called Instant Eye. With its tiny cameras, it can be sent it into a partially collapsed building for a search and rescue effort.

"It is very low cost so you may have a building that is very unstable and you may lose the aircraft. But at only a thousand dollars per aircraft its much better to lose that, than risk the lives of the first responders," Physical Sciences engineer Thomas Vaneck said.

Vaneck and the others who demonstrated their devices at Camp Roberts believe that as the Federal Aviation Administration opens up the skies, the future of drone technology is limitless.

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